


Shortcut

by orphan_account



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 08:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7352986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wonwoo's shortcut turns out to have been quite a bad idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I changed ages - Seungcheol, Jeonghan and Wonwoo are 16, Mingyu is 15, Chan is 13

“Hey, I think this is a shortcut,” Wonwoo said to Jeonghan, Chan, and Mingyu. The group had stayed out at the park a little too late. The sun had already gone down. “I think my brother uses this often.”

“It doesn’t look safe,” Chan said quietly, and gripped firmly onto Jeonghan’s hand. He felt Jeonghan squeeze his hand in an attempt to reassure him.

Wonwoo lead the group confidently through the darkness. Chan was right. Nothing about it looked safe at all.

Every now and then, Chan would glance behind him and see Mingyu slowly trailing behind them. Mingyu noticed this, and knowing the thirteen year old was scared, he would wave to let him know it was someone he was familiar with.

Wonwoo had a quick pace. Chan was walking at Jeonghan’s speed, and since Jeonghan was one of the laziest people Chan knew, it was a little slow. Wonwoo was far ahead, and soon they lost him.

“Jeonghan hyung, I don’t like this one bit,” Chan said softly.

“It’s okay,” Jeonghan told him. “Wonwoo’s only a little far ahead. Not by far,”

The pair walked hand in hand round twists and corners, but never catching a glance of Wonwoo. Chan was scared. His palm grew sweaty in Jeonghan’s grip, but the older boy didn’t seem to care. 

Suddenly, both the boys tightened their hold when they heard screaming. It was Wonwoo, screaming out in pain.

“Mingyu!” He screamed, begging for help. “Mingyu!” Chan had never heard so much pain in someone’s voice.

Jeonghan ran, pulling the young teenager with him. They heard Mingyu running close behind, calling Wonwoo’s name. 

The three reached where Wonwoo was. Chan froze. Wonwoo was pressed against the wall, with a man in front of him. The man had a knife. That knife was being dragged across Wonwoo’s side, continuously. Wonwoo cried out in pain, and trying to call for Mingyu through his sobs.

Mingyu ran forwards, pulling the man away. Neither Chan nor Mingyu knew he could be so strong. He threw the knife away to the other side of the wall, knocking the stabber’s head into the rocky surface of the ground. His head hit with such a force that he was knocked out.

“Wonwoo, babe,” Mingyu whispered as Wonwoo collapsed into his boyfriend’s arms. “Jeonghan, call Cheol.”  
Jeonghan wasted no time in taking out his phone and calling his hyung. They needed to get Wonwoo to the hospital as fast as they could. It was a wonder that Seungcheol immediately understood what Jeonghan said when he spoke so fast.

Mingyu picked Wonwoo up bridal style, running with him in his arms when they heard a car pull up in the near distance.

“Chan, come on,” Jeonghan said softly, taking Chan’s hand. Chan hadn’t moved from the spot where he first saw Wonwoo being stabbed. He was still staring at where Wonwoo had stood.

Jeonghan picked him up, running after Mingyu and Wonwoo. Wonwoo was losing blood rapidly. It soaked his shirt.

“Take Chan home,” Cheol told Jeonghan when they got to the car. Jeonghan nodded, knowing it was best for the boy. He couldn’t imagine what was going through his brain right now. Hospitals would only make whatever his thoughts were worse.

He was thirteen, and he had just seen a close friend be continuously stabbed. It was a wonder Wonwoo wasn’t quite dead yet.

Jeonghan took the young boy to his own home. Chan was meant to stay the night at his anyways, and he didn’t have his house keys on him. He dressed him in some of Jeonghan’s pajamas, and climbed into bed besides him. He took hold of his hand once again. Chan did nothing but stare at the ceiling, eyes wide open.

Somehow, the pair of them fell asleep despite the night’s events. But they didn’t sleep for long when Chan woke up screaming and crying. The older boy wrapped him in his arms, hushing him.

“He’s not going to be okay, is he?” Chan whispered.

“No.” Jeonghan rubbed Chan’s back. He couldn’t hide the truth from Chan. He was a smart thirteen year old.

“He’s going to die, right?”

“Mostly likely. I’m so sorry,”

“I want to be the oblivious baby,” He whispered. “I want to believe he’s gone on some vacation. I don’t want to believe he’s actually gone...when - if, he...passes.” Jeonghan continued to hug him, rubbing his back as he sobbed into his neck.

At around 7am, he received a text from Seungcheol.

_“Wonwoo’s passed. Hope you and Chan are okay x” ___


	2. Epilogue

Chan said nothing throughout Wonwoo’s funeral. He stuck close to Jeonghan, occasionally holding his hand. Jeonghan would give the younger boy’s hand a supporting squeeze. He never spoke since Wonwoo died. Jeonghan had to explain to his parents what happened. 

He stared as the coffin was lowered into the ground. He could hear Wonwoo’s screams in his head, as he cried for his boyfriend. Chan whimpered, and reaching for Jeonghan’s hand again. However, his hyung was comforting Mingyu. So Chan bunched up the ends of the too-big-blazer into his fists and bit his lip. 

Surprisingly, this was the first time Chan cried over Wonwoo’s death other than the nights he woke up from nightmares. He was too shocked, too traumatised. The kid hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep since before he saw his friend brutally stabbed multiple times and murdered by a complete stranger. On the nights he could fall asleep, he would only see Wonwoo that night in the alley, and wake up screaming and crying. 

Mingyu barely spoke, too. When he did, his voice was hoarse from all the tears. Crying himself to sleep seemed to be his normal routine now. The water works would start at the smallest things, as there wasn’t a lot that he didn’t associate his dead boyfriend with. He had known Wonwoo pretty much all his life. Mingyu could barely remember the time before he met him.

He didn’t want to adjust to a life without Wonwoo. A life without his main source of happiness. A life without the only person who could pick him up from his lowest points.

Mingyu had never ran faster when Wonwoo was dying in his arms. He had climbed into the backseat with him, and couldn’t care less that Wonwoo’s blood was beginning to soak his shirt. He had held his head in his arms, stroking his hair, whispering to him that he was going to be alright, everything was going to be fine. Both of them knew this was a lie.

The doctors did try to save him. Blood transplants, stitches, everything. But he was losing blood too rapidly. Wonwoo held Mingyu’s hand in the hospital bed, as tightly as he could (not very tight), staring into the gorgeous shade of brown that lay in Mingyu’s eyes. 

“I love you, Mingyu,” Wonwoo managed to whisper. Mingyu whispered that he loved him too, forever and always. Seungcheol watched the couple, wiping a few tears away from his cheeks. Wonwoo shut his eyes, still holding onto Mingyu’s hand. His lungs inhaled just a few times more. Then the heart monitor’s frequent sounds were replaced with one long beep.

“Oh, Wonwoo,” Mingyu whispered, breaking into sobs as he held his dead boyfriend’s hand to his chest. He felt Seungcheol’s hand on his back in an attempt to comfort him.

Seungcheol didn’t tell Jeonghan until a few hours after Wonwoo had died. He sat with Mingyu outside, letting his tears to soak into his t-shirt. He couldn’t imagine what was going through Mingyu’s head.

Seeing someone get brutally murdered had seriously traumatised Chan. He sometimes had panic attacks when he walked past an alleyway or anything that resembled one. The only way he would eat was if someone fed him with a fork, forcing it down his throat. He lost interest in everything. He never payed attention in class. He never turned in homework. Not that he did it, anyways. Chan no longer had the passion for dance, nor the love for his idol, Michael Jackson. He had therapy every Tuesday, but he would speak very little if not at all, and this probably was partially the reason why therapy never helped at all.

Jeonghan and Seungcheol more or less got over it within a year and a half. Jeonghan had even gotten into a relationship with a boy called Joshua, to whom he often spoke of Wonwoo. Joshua thought Wonwoo seemed to have been a lovely person, and said it was a shame he had never met him. 

It wasn’t much of a shock when Chan committed suicide on the 9th September 2017, exactly one year, two months and seven days after Wonwoo’s death. His parents discovered his body in the bathroom. It was clear he had hanged himself.

On the 23rd of July 2018, Mingyu committed suicide by jumping off a rooftop garden in the city centre. Six days after what would have been Wonwoo’s 18th birthday. He had lay flowers at Wonwoo’s grave, breaking down into floods of tears. Soon after he decided he had had enough of life without Wonwoo. And so he left a suicide note in his bedroom, lay one last tulip at Wonwoo’s grave, ran up flights of stairs, and leaped off the rooftop garden of a six-story building. He was buried in the space next to Wonwoo.

Jeonghan was thrown into a bout of depression. Joshua and his family noticed quickly, and he was soon treated with medication and therapy. Seungcheol wasn’t hit as hard, as he forced himself to have a positive outlook even when three of his best friends had died within just over two years. He still had Jeonghan, and now he also had Joshua. Chan and Mingyu had died over suicide. That means they wanted it. Now they’re in a better, happier place for them, probably with Wonwoo.

The three of them never let their memories die. Jeonghan and Seungcheol continued telling Joshua all about times they had with Wonwoo, little facts about him and little habits he had. The trio constantly spoke of Chan and Mingyu, and often played their favorite music to remind themselves of them.

None of them completely got over their best friends’ deaths. But they stuck together, and they never lost each other.


End file.
